JohnC wrote:Implementing a simple rule of "no links allowed for freshly registered users until "x" number of posts" would've decreased this spam by a huge degree...

As long as your "x" = infinity. For any non-infinite value of x, the spammers will just put up x posts full of non-link garbage, and then start posting link spam again. So we would be exactly where we are now, except the mods would have to get rid of x additional posts from each spammer. And if the probation is time-based, the spammers will plant an initial post and then return x days later to do their spamming. Both of these points came up earlier in this very thread. I don't see any way to implement this solution without requiring new posters to request permission to link and for the mods to manually approve it. That could create a burden for the mods, but the Cap'n at least didn't think so.

The spammers can still theoretically put links in text form (non-clickable, with spaces between characters), but that will greatly reduce any chance that someone will actually follow those links and most likely decrease the willingness of spammers to use these particular forums.

The whole point of this spam is SEO -- they're not relying on dumb humans clicking the links, they're relying on dumb spiders indexing them and raising the linked site in various search/legitimacy rankings. So links as text have no value, which is why stripping the url tags out would be sufficient. However, for the reasons I mentioned above, I think it would be better if the post was un-submit-able if it included links and you didn't have linking permission.

Also, the Captcha for new users should be more than "see those letters, now copy them into textbox below" - any illiterate person can learn to overcome this, so can some bot programs. Instead, it should be a simple question (which would randomly change) where someone has to type in a simple non-numerical answer in English, which should discourage the illiterate spammers from foreign countries. Those 2 simple things should do it... Unless, of course, the moderators still "enjoy" manually cleaning up dozens of spam posts in various threads

There's a whole CAPTCHA industry, and a corresponding counter-CAPTCHA industry. I'm not going to presume to know what would work at this point, especially given the tight trade-offs between driving away new users (not all of whom have English as a first language) with high barriers and driving away the rest of us with excessive spam.

The sad reality is that no two things, simple or not, is going to just "do it." There's an arms race here, and unless the financial incentives on the other side change, that's never going to end. The job of the good guys is to do what they can without driving legitmate users away through sheer inconvenience (and without driving themselves crazy in the process).

UberGerbil wrote:The sad reality is that no two things, simple or not, is going to just "do it." There's an arms race here, and unless the financial incentives on the other side change, that's never going to end. The job of the good guys is to do what they can without driving legitmate users away through sheer inconvenience (and without driving themselves crazy in the process).

And the balancing act so far leans toward the user, as it should be. We know spam won't stop, we'd just like to wake up and not find 93 posts to be nuked in the few minutes I have between shower, shave, ironing, and departure for work.

UberGerbil wrote:As long as your "x" = infinity. For any non-infinite value of x, the spammers will just put up x posts full of non-link garbage, and then start posting link spam again. So we would be exactly where we are now, except the mods would have to get rid of x additional posts from each spammer. And if the probation is time-based, the spammers will plant an initial post and then return x days later to do their spamming. Both of these points came up earlier in this very thread. I don't see any way to implement this solution without requiring new posters to request permission to link and for the mods to manually approve it. That could create a burden for the mods, but the Cap'n at least didn't think so.

Keep in mind where he's coming from. AFAIK most of our mods are in the US, and it seems to me that the Cap'n is often the first mod to hit the forums in the morning. He sees all the spam that has come in while the other mods have been sleeping.

Even discounting this, the ratio of legit members to spammers among new account registrations is pretty low. It likely would be less work for the mods to manually approve each new member to post links.

Welch wrote:LMFAO!

Assuming you're referring to the post above yours, saving one of the spammer's posts does have a couple of legitimate purposes: It means we have a record of the spammer's IP address, and we also have the context to go back and re-evaluate the ban if someone contacts us asking why they were banned. The spam post gets moved to a hidden forum, so it no longer serves the spammer's intended purpose (SEO).

The years just pass like trains. I wave, but they don't slow down.-- Steven Wilson

just brew it! wrote:Keep in mind where he's coming from. AFAIK most of our mods are in the US, and it seems to me that the Cap'n is often the first mod to hit the forums in the morning. He sees all the spam that has come in while the other mods have been sleeping.

Most weekdays I roll in here around 6:00AM Eastern, so I usually see messes that occurred between 2:00AM Eastern and then.

Ahhh, I was under the impression that Fox was just having a bit of fun. All valid reasons to hold onto a spare post in a hidden forums. How often have you had requests from a user claiming to have been ban for spamming when they weren't though?

I understand the conundrum that you guys as moderators have with this issue. Short of requiring new users to write an essay about why they want to post on the TR forums, I think this issue is just one that will have to be lived with until the spammers get to the point where its no longer beneficial to post here. Keep up the good work guys, we appreciate you cleaning up the forums for us.

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

Welch wrote:Ahhh, I was under the impression that Fox was just having a bit of fun. All valid reasons to hold onto a spare post in a hidden forums. How often have you had requests from a user claiming to have been ban for spamming when they weren't though?

It does not happen often, but it does happen occasionally.

The years just pass like trains. I wave, but they don't slow down.-- Steven Wilson

You know. I've always wondered why TR kept all that crap spam around for.. NO one ever comes back and revokes them. I mean the only thing I can think of is they enjoy archiving 1,000s of endless IP's from china, Singapore, India, Pakistan, Russia, Korea, Philippines, and wherever else the spammers are routing from these days. useless junk i tell ya, unload it!

I mentioned this earlier since it works for my site but I'll bring it up again since I found the same sort of mod is available for PHBB. http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopi ... &t=1340275That mod integrates the Askimet anti-spam into the site which will block the spammers via this:

What this MOD does is send various things (username, User IP etc) to the Akismet service for spam testing. If it is classified as a spam post or user, it will be blocked. To use this, you will need an API key from Wordpress. These are free. You may get one from http://wordpress.com/api-keys/

It works because the spammers tend to keep coming from the same IPs and using the same login. So when a spammer gets discovered and reported they are then blocked from registering at any other site until they change their login info. It took the spam that made it onto our site from tens of spam accounts a day down to maybe one a week. It's much easier than playing whack a mole with spammers.

It should be possible to be anonymous on the internet (eliminating anonymity is what enables regimes to track down and punish their critics, for example),

perhaps we might consider John Hancock and the other signers of the US Declaration of Independence in regards to appropriate ways to address grievances against governments.

IMHO, much of the problem with spam, trolls, and other I'net nuisances is that of avoiding accountability for one's actions.

I also don't think 'regimes tracking down critics' is as much of a problem as, for example, those folks like Salman Rushdie. Governments have a lot more difficulty being anonymous than some religious nut.

We need better social solutions to abuse on either side than separating people from the consequences of their behavior. That starts with connecting the identity of a person with his behavior.

Salman Rushdie is a religious nut? Maybe read his wikipedia page (at the least) he's a person who has a government sanctioned price on his head and lives in a weird public hiding. Maybe I misread what you were saying. Apologies in advance.I agree that the atmosphere of the internet is a lack of accountability but then its also its strength. Funnily enough youtube videos have some pretty terrible comments on some of the most benign videos.Its also a fake sense of anonymity because to an extent anyone can be traced backed to the "source" a lot of the time. There's just to many kids on the internet... Battlefield 3 is the worst when some kid leaves his Mic open.

CityEater, from your post count it looks like you're new around here, so -- welcome! -- and a head's-up: please read the post immediately following the one you replied to (and notice the poster's name is a conspicuous color that indicates mod status). If you want to continue this line of debate in the R&P forum, feel free. This thread is precisely about keeping unwanted posts out of threads, so let's stick to that ourselves.

derFunkenstein wrote:I want to make life as easy on the mods as possible. Is clicking the Report Spam link worth it for them? Would they see it otherwise? If clicking it makes it more of a pain, I'll stop.

Clicking the "report this post" link helps us tell at a glance whether there's new spam that needs to be dealt with. It is also *vastly* preferable to posting in-thread (since posting in-thread is easier for mods/admins to miss and also bumps the spam thread to the top of the Hot Threads list on the front page).

The years just pass like trains. I wave, but they don't slow down.-- Steven Wilson